Background It is necessary to know the impact of the haematological toxicity in patients starting treatment with triple therapy for chronic hepatitis C in daily clinical practice.

Purpose To check the haematological side effects of telaprevir, ribavirin and interferon, in patients with chronic hepatitis C genotype 1.

Materials and methods A retrospective, observational study of patients in treatment with a triple therapy including telaprevir. All patients who started treatment during 2012 and had at least 3 months of treatment were included. All the medicines dispensing and blood test records were collected and haemoglobin, lymphocyte and platelet levels were examined.

Results 53 patients were included, 36 men and 17 women. The average age was 56 (max. 73; min 40).

The baseline haemoglobin was 15.2 g/dl. The lowest average level of Hb was 9.9 and was reached on day 81 of treatment, around the 12th week of the telaprevir treatment. In 52.9% of patients, the value was under 10 g/dl. 12 patients reached a mild anaemia, 14 reached moderate anaemia and 2 reached severe anaemia.

The average concentration of lymphocytes at the beginning was: 2.1 × 10³/μl (max. 4.3; min 0.7 × 10³/μl). The minimum value was 0.83 × 10³/μl (max. 1.8; min 0.2 × 10³/μl) at day 89.

The average concentration of platelets at the beginning was: 160.85 × 10³/μl (max. 317; min 61 × 10³/μl). The minimum value was 84.8 × 10³/μl (max. 253; min 24 × 10³/μl) reached at day 82. 26 of the patients reached thrombocytopenia grade 2, 10 reached grade 3 and 1 reached grade 4.

Conclusions The reduction of the blood parameters in patients treated with triple therapy started around one month after initiating the treatment, reaching the lowest levels after 12–16 weeks, coinciding approximately with the end of the protease inhibitor treatment. This fits our expectations concerning to the studies.

No conflict of interest.